HMRC Processing Time?

What is everyone's experience of wait times?

Didn't find your answer?

I'm just off the phone with the trust line.

We've submitted a number of years tax returns for a client. There were no notices to file so we had three months from the date we notified to submit them. These were duly submitted on time (by post as there was a covering letter explaining things).

We have received late filing penalties for the years in question and called up to find out what has happened. They acknowledged that the returns were received on time, but they hadn't ben processed yet. When they were processed the penalties would be waievd. All good.

The problem is the timescales they are currenlty working towar is 75 days!

I know some departments have been runing at 7-8 weeks turnaround, but 15 weeks seems a bit much. 

What is everyone else's current experience of waiting times?

Anyone any tips for speeding things up?

Replies (4)

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By Wanderer
12th Jun 2018 11:30

KevinMcC wrote:

Anyone any tips for speeding things up?

We would have filed online.
Nowadays you really do need to take the human element out of the chain as far as possible when dealing with HMRC.
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Replying to Wanderer:
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By KevinMcC
12th Jun 2018 11:57

Yeah I'm kind of regretting the decision to send them in by paper now.

It was done that way as there was a covering letter with an explanation as to why there was a failure to notify, and I believed it would be easier to provide this with the submissions, as opposed to appealing any penalties once a decision has been made.

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Replying to KevinMcC:
Tornado
By Tornado
12th Jun 2018 13:13

You can add attachments to online filings such as an explanatory letter in .pdf format.

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Replying to Tornado:
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By KevinMcC
12th Jun 2018 15:14

Do attachments ever get read properly?

I've always viewed attachments as handy for providing extra information when it's needed, as you can then point to it being provided, but I'm never convinced they get much attention paid to them.

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